Congress must resolve battle of generations

The opposition Congress party's present crisis is unlike any other it faced in the past. Earlier, when it split in 1907 or 1969 or 1978, the division was the result of an internal confrontation. This time, however, the Congress’s two defeats in the 2014 and 2019 elections appear to have persuaded party president Rahul Gandhi to mould the party in accordance with his ideas.

For a start, he wants Congress to become more accountable than before, when its defeats did not lead to organizational changes at the top. Instead, a token offer of resignation was made by the party president and predictably rejected by vociferous courtiers, thereby restoring status quo ante.

Rahul has apparently decided to end this charade. His decision to resign – and stick to it despite the hue and cry of sycophants has led to turmoil like the one in an orphanage whose caretaker has suddenly walked out. Used to being watered and fed, the courtiers now don’t know what to do. Hence, calls for either Sonia Gandhi, his mother, or Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, his sister, to become president, as denizens of the orphanage feel helpless without a Nehru-Gandhi at the helm.

There have also been calls for an internal election, notably by Karnataka leader, Veerappa Moily. These are the only sensible solution, as in any democratic party. They will demonstrate how popular the Gandhis really are, considering that since 2014, they seem to have led the party downhill, with neither Rahul nor anyone else showing any sign of being able to assess the mood of common people or outlining a vision of the country's future. Instead, the Congress president, as Rahul was then, depended on negativism, which was roundly rejected by the electorate.

At the moment, Rahul is playing for high stakes where the party can either survive – if it can learn to stand on its own with someone other than a Nehru-Gandhi becoming president – or perish. Rahul’s recipe for survival apparently focuses on getting rid of the old guard – a new syndicate – who were also lambasted by his father, former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, during the Congress’s centenary celebrations in 1985.

Rajiv Gandhi said then that on the back of the Congress workers “ride the brokers of power and influence, who dispense patronage to convert a mass movement into a feudal oligarchy”. Rahul, too, hit out at the old guards after the party’s defeat, accusing them of being more preoccupied with elections of their sons than of other Congress candidates. His targets were the Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh chief ministers, Ashok Gehlot, and Kamal Nath, and former finance minister, P. Chidambaram.

Normally, they should have stepped down, for Rahul said in his own resignation letter that “it is a habit in India that the powerful cling to power, no one sacrifices power”.

It is possible that he had something like a second Kamaraj plan (named after a Congress president of the 1960s) to rebuild the party, as in 1963, when union ministers and chief ministers resigned from their posts to work for the party organization after it lost three crucial by-elections to opposition stalwarts.

But if Gehlot and Kamal Nath have ignored Rahul’s admonition, the possible reason is that they have Sonia Gandhi’s support, for she is apparently uneasy about the 'First Family' relinquishing power and allowing youngsters like Sachin Pilot, deputy chief minister of Rajasthan, and Jyotiraditya Scindia, a prominent Madhya Pradesh leader - both former union ministers – to replace the old guard.

We have an unusual situation, therefore, of conflicting views about the party’s tactics being within the family rather than between two opposing groups, only one of which is from the family.It is unclear how these divergent approaches of the mother and son, aimed at the party’s resurrection, will be resolved. In a way, it is a battle of generations, each of whom is guided by a distinctive idea of revival. While Sonia Gandhi favours trusted old hands, Rahul wants to induct the relatively young.

In the meantime, the Congress is haemorrhaging with droves of time-servers seeking greener pastures, mainly in the ruling BJP which is pursuing a cynical, opendoor policy to accommodate them.

The fate of India's Grand Old Party, that brought independence, hangs in the balance as the BJP seeks to fulfil its preelection pledge of making a "Congress-mukt" (Congress-free) India.

We have an unusual situation, therefore, of conflicting views about the party’s tactics being within the family rather than between two opposing groups, only one of which is from the family.It is unclear how these divergent approaches of the mother and son, aimed at the party’s resurrection, will be resolved. In a way, it is a battle of generations, each of whom is guided by a distinctive idea of revival. While Sonia Gandhi favours trusted old hands, Rahul wants to induct the relatively young